


still she haunts me, phantomwise

by Cerberusia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aging, M/M, post—hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 12:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1779655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/pseuds/Cerberusia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Yorkshire seaside is <i>freezing</i> at Christmas; Harry, Draco and aging.</p>
            </blockquote>





	still she haunts me, phantomwise

**Author's Note:**

> Something I wrote for HD Owlpost last Christmas and forgot to post to AO3. I confess to shameless author appeal: I am myself a Yorkshire lass. As you can see, we're not above poking fun at our appalling weather - and the Southerners who can't hack it. Title is from Lewis Carroll's _A Boat beneath a Sunny Sky_.

The Yorkshire seaside is _freezing_ at Christmas. Actually, Draco is fairly sure that Yorkshire is freezing _all_ the time, godforsaken barbarian country that it is. And whoever had spouted all that rubbish about the supposed beauty of the moors clearly had some strange ideas about the romantic attraction of sheep shit.

Harry looks perfectly comfortable, the bastard. Then again, that's why Draco uses him as a hot water bottle in bed. When Harry's away he has to break out the flannel nightshirt and bedsocks. Draco shivers, wrapping his arms tighter around his midsection. Confound these barren sands and the supposed tip that brought them here - there's nothing here and they both know it, but policy is they have to search the whole damn beach for buried, illegally-imported Boomslang skin anyway. Draco has already given up, too cold and too bored to be arsed, while Harry picks through the last square foot of beach. The smudge on his arm where his Mark used to be aches like it always does in the cold.

"Nothing," Harry calls to him at last, his grimace visible even at a distance. Draco gives a Gallic shrug, unwilling to uncurl and loose precious heat. Harry picks his way over the rocky shore back towards him, and upon reaching him wraps an arm around him.

"Let's go home, yeah?" he says, and performs Side-Along Apparition.

The Yorkshire chill clings to Draco for a good few seconds, tightening all his muscles, until the new warmth penetrates his cocoon of cold and gradually his face stops feeling raw and he stops shivering. A hot cup of tea floats over to the kitchen table and he accepts it gratefully as Harry takes a seat opposite with the paperwork. Their feet brush under the table.

They go through the paperwork perfunctorily, ticking boxes and writing the skimpiest explanations they can get away with. In Draco's opinion, three forms to convey the message 'We found precisely fuck-all, please don't waste our time' is far too many; Harry agrees, but in his attempts to cut down on needless bureaucracy in their department he has so far been thwarted at every turn. The fact that he hasn't just gone ahead with the reforms anyway and fired anyone who tried to kick up a fuss highlights what Draco feels is the essential difference in temperament between the two of them.

Finally they sign off the forms, Harry's tiny squiggle and Draco's equally illegible swooping curlicue, and Harry sends them off by Floo with a sigh of relief. Draco follows him into the living room and lowers himself into an armchair, stretching his tight back muscles. He's not yet fifty, but he's felt middle age creeping upon him for a decade already. Going by the threads of grey in the hair of many of his contemporaries, it's a widespread phenomenon; most were adults at sixteen, parents at twenty, and by forty their bodies were protesting. Long accustomed to kissing the faded Mark on Draco's arm and the thin, almost imperceptible scar on his chest, Harry has now taken to brushing his fingertips tenderly over the crows' feet at the corners of Draco's eyes, and smiles when Draco does the same. They've grown _old_.

But - he looks across at Harry in the other armchair, barefoot, cleaning his glasses, a touch of silver glinting at his temples - there's no-one he'd rather grow old disgracefully with.


End file.
